New Friends

As Arnold returned the greeting of the President, all the other
members of the Circle rose from their seats and took off their masks and
the black shapeless cloaks which had so far completely covered them from
head to foot.

Then, one after the other, they came forward and were formally
introduced to him by the President. Nine of the fourteen were men, and
five were women of ages varying from middle age almost to girlhood. The
men were apparently all between twenty-five and thirty-five, and
included some half-dozen nationalities among them.

All, both men and women, evidently belonged to the educated, or rather
to the cultured class. Their speech, which seemed to change with perfect
ease from one language to another in the course of their somewhat
polyglot converse, was the easy flowing speech of men and women
accustomed to the best society, not only in the social but the
intellectual sense of the word.

All were keen, alert, and swift of thought, and on the face of each one
there was the dignifying expression of a deep and settled purpose which
at once differentiated them in Arnold's eyes from the ordinary idle or
merely money-making citizens of the world.

As each one came and shook hands with the new member of the Brotherhood,
he or she had some pleasant word of welcome and greeting for him; and so
well were the words chosen, and so manifestly sincerely were they
spoken, that by the time he had shaken hands all round Arnold felt as
much at home among them as though he were in the midst of a circle of
old friends.

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Among the women there were two who had attracted his attention and
roused his interest far more than any of the other members of the
Circle. One of these was a tall and beautifully-shaped woman, whose face
and figure were those of a woman in the early twenties, but whose long,
thick hair was as white as though the snows of seventy winters had
drifted over it. As he returned her warm, firm hand-clasp, and looked
upon her dark, resolute, and yet perfectly womanly features, the young
engineer gave a slight start of recognition. She noticed this at once
and said, with a smile and a quick flash from her splendid grey eyes--

"Ah! I see you recognise me. No, I am not ashamed of my portrait. I am
proud of the wounds that I have received in the war with tyranny, so you
need not fear to confess your recognition.

It was true that Arnold had recognised her. She was the original of the
central figure of the painting which depicted the woman being flogged by
the Russian soldiers.

Arnold flushed hotly at the words with the sudden passionate anger that
they roused within him, and replied in a low, steady voice--

"Those who would sanction such a crime as that are not fit to live. I
will not leave one stone of that prison standing upon another. It is a
blot on the face of the earth, and I will wipe it out utterly!"